<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<recipeml version="0.5">
  <recipe>
    <head>
      <title>1989 2nd Place Great-Grandma's Gingerbread Cookies</title>
      <categories>
        <cat>Cookies</cat>
        <cat>Holiday</cat></categories>
      <yield>36</yield></head>
    <ingredients>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1/2</qty>
          <unit>cups</unit></amt>
        <item>Vegetable shortening</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1</qty>
          <unit>cup</unit></amt>
        <item>Sugar</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>3</qty>
          <unit/></amt>
        <item>Eggs</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1/2</qty>
          <unit>cups</unit></amt>
        <item>Cold water</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>2</qty>
          <unit>teaspoons</unit></amt>
        <item>Baking soda</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1</qty>
          <unit>cup</unit></amt>
        <item>Sorghum or molasses</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty/>
          <unit/></amt>
        <item>All-purpose flour (5-6 cups)</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1</qty>
          <unit>teaspoon</unit></amt>
        <item>Ground cinnamon</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1/2</qty>
          <unit>teaspoons</unit></amt>
        <item>Ground cloves</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1</qty>
          <unit>teaspoon</unit></amt>
        <item>Ginger</item></ing>
      <ing>
        <amt>
          <qty>1/2</qty>
          <unit>teaspoons</unit></amt>
        <item>Salt</item></ing></ingredients>
    <directions>
      <step>  Preparation time: 30 minutes Chilling time: Overnight Baking time: 10
  minutes
  
   1. Cream shortening and sugar in mixing bowl, beat in eggs, one at a time.
  Mix water and baking soda in small bowl until dissolved. Add baking soda
  mixture and sorghum to butter mixture. Sift 5 1/2 cups of the flour, the
  spices and salt together. Blend into dough. Divide dough into 4 balls. Wrap
  in plastic wrap. Flatten and refrigerate overnight.
  
   2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Roll 1 portion of dough out at a time on
  lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes. Bake on a greased cookie
  sheet until puffed, 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake.
  
   3. When cool, decorate with buttercream frosting and/or candies as
  desired. Sorghum gives these cookies a special flavor, but molasses can be
  used as a substitute.
  
  Ann Smith of Plainfield won second place, and described how her gingerbread
  men left Bohemia in 1872 and immigrated to the United States. Smith's
  great-grandmother, "Babicka" Novak, lived in a small Czech-American town in
  South Dakota where Smith's mother grew up in the 1920s. At Christmas time,
  her great-grandma would give her neighbors Old World gingerbread men,
  reindeer and rocking horses.
    "One year when Great-grandma delivered the cookies, she brought along her
  teenaged grandson, who was visiting from a small ethnic Czech community in
  Nebraska," Smith wrote.
    "Introductions made that day over the watchful eyes of the gingerbread
  men eventually lead to wedding bells for my parents a decade later.
  Great-grandma Novak probably had planned this all along!" from the Chicago
  Tribune second annual Food Guide Holiday Cookie Contest December 14, 1989
  Posted to MM-Recipes Digest V3 #340
  
  From: Linda Place &lt;placel@worldnet.att.net&gt;
  
  Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 01:07:01 +0000
 
</step></directions></recipe></recipeml>
